


Nothing

by Apostat3



Series: Non-Fiction Reflections [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Philosophy, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 03:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18908863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apostat3/pseuds/Apostat3
Summary: A non-fiction reflective piece exploring the value of philosophy as a whole through the concept of nothing.





	Nothing

_ “What exactly is nothing at all? What would nothing be?” _

 

__ \- John Heil _ _

 

 

‘Nothing’, in my opinion, is the most hopeful concept there is. 

 

If you take a moment to consider it, the idea of nothing seems a rather impossible concept. Nothing cannot ever be imagined, for whatever you visualise in your mind must be something so cannot be nothing. Nothing eludes description, as any words you could use have meanings attached to them, meaning they are something which means they cannot represent nothing. Nothing is quite literally unfathomable, as anything you could fathom must be something. Even using the word nothing for the concept of nothing is a contradiction in itself. 

 

Yet, just like everything else in the human mind, the idea of nothing is a human-made concept. The concept of nothing was conceived by human minds; they quite literally conceived an inconceivable thing - and what a terrifying concept it is. Being nothing, you could argue, is the thing that humans fear the most. After all, many world religions base their doctrines on explaining away nothing, with promises of souls and afterlives to ensure we know we will never be nothing, so we do not have to live in existential dread. Nothing is an idea filled with pure terror because it is simply beyond any understanding we can ever hope to have.

 

And yet, I consider the idea of nothing to be a very hopeful concept. It seems a strange thing to draw hope from, but the idea of nothing shows us a very important thing about philosophy. The value of philosophy, ultimately is that we take seemingly intangible concepts, like nothing, and remove that common sense inhibitor that says “Bah, don’t bother with this, it’s impossible to be figure out” and simply allow ourselves to wonder what they are. The best part about it, I think, is that we don’t even have to answer the initial question, solve our initial quandary, in order to gain something - some wisdom or insight into the nature of things. Take John Heil’s question about nothing, for example. “What would nothing be?”. We could spend hours, days, years considering this question, proposing answers, and we’d probably never get to the bottom of it. But in the process of trying to quantify nothing, we would find ourselves realising something else entirely, as in order to consider the properties of nothing, we must first consider the properties of something. To understand what nothing is, we must be aware of what something is. So, completely as an incidental knock-on effect, we consider what it is that actually constitutes something. Is it that we can see it? Feel it? Be affected by it? Perhaps it is simply the knowledge that it is there, and nothing more tangible is required?

 

Do we need evidence to know something exists? Surely there must be some sort of indication of its existence in order for you to believe, to know. This is a truth explored by Bertrand Russell, with his teapot analogy. Put simply, he said that were he to claim that a tiny china teapot orbited the sun between Earth and Mars, but was too small to be seen by telescopes, the fact you could not disprove his statement was not any reason to believe it, either. In philosophy, the absence of evidence against does not act as evidence for. He applied this analogy’s logic to the debate over the existence of God, but really it can be used when considering anything. I have no proof the keyboard I am typing on does not exist, but that alone is not evidence to believe it does. I believe it does because I see it when I type, and I see the words appear on the screen. I know it exists because I feel it against my fingers each time I press a key. But is that really hard evidence? After all, can optical illusions not fool the brain? Can you not make someone feel as though they are holding a ball between their hands when, in truth, nothing is there? How can our senses be trusted to provide real, hard evidence for things when they are so easily fooled by simple tricks?

 

The existence of anything and everything, ultimately, is a leap of faith. In truth, there is no way to truly  _ know  _ anything, not for certain. Everything in our world is based on our belief. We choose to believe in things every day, and this decision can be made for a variety of reasons. Perhaps we believe things because it makes our life easier; indeed, believing this keyboard actually exists because I can touch and see it certainly helps me sleep at night without being tormented by a constant state of existential crisis. Perhaps we believe things because they enrich our life? People choose to believe in ghosts for the excitement from scary stories, and because it brings comfort to imagine our loved ones never really die, that they have some immortal soul which perseveres through thick and thin. To me, that’s what belief is all about. It’s full of hope and joy and emotion, and it makes our world feel a little warmer than an existence purely based on things which we can provide hard proof of. It makes the end of our life seem a little less scary, as we can rest easy in the belief that our beautiful soul will go to an eternal paradise, and the souls of the wicked will finally get the comeuppance they deserve. Can we prove a soul exists? No. Can we see, feel, sense a soul? No. Are our lives better if a soul exists? Probably; so what’s the harm in believing? Nothing at all. At least, if the soul does not exist, we won’t be around to be disappointed. 

 

Souls, ultimately, are the very embodiment of the concept of something. Something that will always be there, utterly indestructible and unchangeable. The soul, however intangible, is a human-made concept, and, as they say, no smoke without fire - there must be a reason we conceived of them in the first place. We cannot disprove it, but Russell teaches us that this fact should not act as evidence for, so there is not evidence to prove it either. The existence of a soul is completely based on faith, on hope. Besides, in the end, doesn’t believing the soul exists and remembering those who have passed achieve the goal of a soul in the first place? To make an intangible, persevering existence for something, living on in the mind? In this sense, does this not mean that souls  _ do  _ exist? Even if you die and that is it - the end, finito, no soul for you - you are still something to someone. You are still something recorded in countless documents. You are still something, spiting the very idea that anyone could be nothing. This, soul or not, is a fact. In the words of Lucy Maud Montgomery, “ Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”

 

This is why philosophy is so important. Despite the fact we began discussing nothing, we ultimately have made many revelations regarding other matters as an effect of this. These revelations, along with the concepts they come with, are the cornerstone of human society; after all, our ability to wonder is what sets us apart from any old animal. Our ability to feel. To hope. Philosophy, in the end, is essential to human culture and existence, as it gives us reason to strive to be more than nothing. To make something of ourselves. Not simply blundering along, but instead finding some resolute purpose; a light shining in darkness, like the stars in the night sky. And when we look up at that sky, the same sky all life on Earth has gazed at for countless years and will likely continue to for countless more, and see it shimmering with light and life, it may be hard not to feel small and insignificant, without purpose. But it also allows us to be certain of one thing: we are something, in a whole universe of somethings. Whether you believe science or religion on the origins of the universe, once there was nothing and now there is something. There is us. We exist in spite of all logic; nothing should  _ not _ be able to turn into something and yet here we are.

 

Think about how hopeful and beautiful these ideas are: souls, light, the idea of everything. Now think about how we got to this point in the discussion. By considering nothing at all.  _ That _ is the value of philosophy; even nothing can be full of hope, because nothing can lead to something, and something can lead to anything and everything. 

 

‘Nothing’, in my opinion, is the most hopeful concept there is. 


End file.
